YER EXPERIENCE WITH DYNEEMA TENT FLOORS?

When Cuben first came out, ordered a yard of the one ounce stuff, shaded green for potential use as a floor. (Note that Zpacks says that the 1 osy DCF “…is standard material on all of our tent floors.” It was so stiff, using it for a part of a tent as large as a floor could only be a major PITA for someone who likes to hike light; but not great distances each day. Which means a lot of camping and a lot of packing and unpacking the tent. Which I enjoy, but not with PITA’s.

I have nearly 250 nights in DCF tents. The most in one tent is 130+ in a Duplex. I have never had water come through the groundsheet or the fly in any of them. I do use a polycryo footprint, but then I do with our non-DCF tent too because we often camp on ground soiled by goats and sheep and it’s easier to clean.

Other people’s experience may be different (though I don’t think Roger Caffin has much experience in DCF) and I don’t camp in 100mph winds. But what has prompted me to write is your concern about folding a tent with a DCF groundsheet – that has never been an issue whatsoever. And I can say from experience that folding and rolling a DCF tent is much simpler than with a silnylon tent.

I agree with your comment on tunnel tents. DCF is probably best for tents with panels in a single plane.

I think I’m pushing the 50-ish night mark with my Aeon Li, floor is 1.0 DCF and I’ve had no issues whatsoever with the floor leaking, tearing, holes, etc.  I don’t use any kind of footprint.

It may not seem like it, but this dialogue is potentially productive.  And particularly interesting to me given my post on which inner to get for the Notch. (Thanks for everyones feedback here & on that post, Eric & others).  An independent testing lab comes to mind as a source of data, but user experience carries the day – with the caveat of behavioral science & confirmation bias almost unavoidable.  Companies that manufacture shelters, even those I respect like Henry at Tarptent, have the expertise but also, granted, have a horse in the race.

I will say, as a new member, that the BPL members strike me as backpackers with more objectivity and fewer agendas, I think (compared to Reddit & similar).  Eric, you’re probably good with a dyneema floor & “footprint”.

Mike M – thanks for you feedback on your SO Flight pack (& others).  You say you’re good with 50 nights on your Aeon Li.  Question – why’d you chose the Aeon over the Notch?

Thanks, Steve H

“Finding a take away from conflicting statements like these is the bane of BPL.  Some of it comes from internet media generally; with its spoofing, some of it well-intentioned, but a lot of it not…       So both posts could be accurate…”

Sam, you are quite welcome to come and inspect my two dcf floors that I referred to, and draw your own conclusions. The most damaged one was part of a Hexanet inner, but I have cut away the netting, and, being reluctant to throw anything away, keep trying to think of a use for it – maybe a porch or wind break somewhere.

In fact I am willing to post it to you, and you could see for yourself the nature of the invisible (to the naked eye) microscopic holes I referred to. Perhaps someone else would also send a floor that they have “never had a failure” with, and which has had a genuine 100 nights of use on mixed ground, ie not only grass and soft duff, and not left in the backpack for many nights on a thru hike. Each could be subject to thorough pressure testing.

William – you camp in mostly dry places (Turkey?), have you tried gently pressure testing that Duplex floor?

People not having a problem means they’ve not had water inside, not necessarily that their floor is 100% sound. You might have to inadvertently end up in a puddle or big flood to notice it.

Two thoughts : Using Polycryo underneath might prevent damp from entering a slightly damaged inner tent, through the action of surface tension caused by any thin film of water that has got between the two layers.  This will cause the two plastic layers to cling together. Camping in a pond might be asking too much.

Secondly, thinking back to how I handled my Hexamid tarp and inner, I used to stuff them into the tiny bag that they came with. I’ve since learnt that this is not best practice with dcf, and will make lots of fold stress points. Instead just lightly fold and roll. Unfortunately that will take up more pack space.

Admittedly, I am only an n of 2 (2 floors), but I cannot believe I am the only person with dcf affected in this way.

William – you camp in mostly dry places (Turkey?), have you tried gently pressure testing that Duplex floor?

People not having a problem means they’ve not had water inside, not necessarily that their floor is 100% sound. You might have to inadvertently end up in a puddle or big flood to notice it.

Very true, we haven’t camped in a puddle with the Duplex recently, but we have had it in a fair bit of rain recently without any problems. I’m sure the polycryo would help in the conditions we’ve experienced.

As I said, I was prompted to write due to the comment about folding and rolling potentially being a PITA. There seems to be a tendency for some on BPL to dismiss DCF out of hand without any personal experience . No doubt it’s not the best material for all applications, but it has its place for some type of tents for some purposes.

And, no, never stuff it, always fold and roll as you say (though I disagree that it will take up more space that way).

“But what has prompted me to write is your concern about folding a tent with a DCF groundsheet – that has never been an issue whatsoever.”

William C,
Your comments make me wonder if the one oz DCF in common use now for floors is something different than what I ordered several years ago. There is a way to address that, but property tax bills come out here soon, so it will have to wait.

John H,
Your comment to me makes me wonder if you think I doubted you. What I was getting at, to be blunt, is that someone with extensive use of a DCF floor might well incur damage, whereas for someone with much less use, maybe not.  So I’ve no doubt all is as you’ve described.  And as has been suggested, some simple tests, like one with a hose nozzle on max pressed against the fabric, or just pooling water a few days in a large tub lined with fabric, might indicate how much water resistance has been lost. But it is very hard to believe that a floor with the damage you describe would be suitably water resistant.  Yours is far from the only post I’ve read on BPL describing the pin holes and other damage from wear and tear.  If you want, you can email Stephen Seeber and see if he is willing to HH test your floor material.

With Williams’s and others’ differing experience about DCF floors, I’m back to being mystified, especially given your reasoning about why you think it was not a case of a defective batch of material.  Please note that the all night wind and rainstorms I’ve experienced both in the NE US and in CO, require very WP and strong tent floors, no ifs, buts or maybes.

Being mystified does not put me in a buying frame of mind, however; especially when much lower priced 6.6 silnylon is available.   While RBR’s only comes in white, Thru-Hiker’s comes in dark green (labled “Shield”).

Perhaps an explanation lies in the regions where the material is used.  The Pacific Crest appears to be very dry, especially now; whereas the central rockies and  the NE US can be murderous with long and intensive rain storms, although the climates of these areas are changing so fast, it is hard to keep up, especially if you live 2-3000 miles away.

Think I’m going to have to be patient and see what develops.  It could be that the changing climate will be dry enough for DCF.  And it could be that Dyneema just isn’t telling about what if any improvements have been made to Cuben.   But that’s all speculation, IMO not enough to justify doubling the expense of a tent or tarp.  Patience can be its own reward; but in the meantime, I’ll have to be content with relating my experiences with 6.6 silnylon floors without use of groundsheets.

Would recommend to anyone else considering that option to obtain as much information about the floor material as possible.  The quality of silnylon has varied from one extreme to the other, as now appears may also be the case with DCF.  Caveat Emptor.

I have about 50 nights in my Zpacks Plexamid, and I have not noticed any water coming through the floor in practical use. At first (maybe ~10 nights), I did use a Tyvek groundsheet, but I developed more confidence in it with frequent use and ultimately left the Tyvek at home. I pitch it on a wide range of surfaces (mostly above timberline), and I make an effort to clean up the site, but I’m not obsessive about it.

Actually, my bigger concern when originally buying the tent was how it would hold up to dog claws from the inside, since I’ve had numerous punctures to silnylon floors over the years (easily repaired with Tenacious Tape). I’m happy to report that it has not been an issue with the Dyneema, anecdotally suggesting that it is a pretty tough material.

I’m with Brad that there isn’t a good rationale for it. DCF with the thin mylar (0.5 – 0.7oz) isn’t going to hold up well. The 1.0 – 1.2oz stuff is good enough for a reasonable lifespan with a fair bit of care, but you can get wovens at that weight that will last as least as long while being much more affordable and less bulky. The thick mylar DCF is very bulky stuff.

What you really want is a dual coated woven (nylon or poly) with sil on the ground side and PEU on the top side. That makes it non-slippery (the big issue with pure sil) while being almost as good tear strength and equal in terms of abrasion. For the same weight as 1.0 – 1.2oz DCF, I’d rather take a 15-20D sil/PEU woven. Save $50 while getting a smaller packing tent that’ll last at least as long.

Dan, what is the best UL floor fabric you know of that’s available at retail? RBTR 20d silpoly 4000?

Dan-s,
Conventional Tenacious Tape, available for years, does not adhere to silicone coatings. Gear Aid does sell silnylon patches now in their Tenacious Tape line. Haven’t bought any, because have never had a need to patch a silnylon floor (as distinguished from a nylon coated with sil on one side and PU on the other, which could be less elastic with the PU, and therefore less puncture resistant.) But for anyone who wants to try the patches for silnylon, they are 3″x5″ and at:
https://www.amazon.com/Tenacious-Silnylon-Patches-Silicone-Repair/dp/B08FFL4ZZ5

I’ve done most of my longer hikes with two Shetland Sheepdogs and have never had a problem with their claws damaging a silnylon foor.  Their teeth are another story, and have gone through four layers of Kevlar cloth, sewn with Kevlar thread into a webbing for a leash collar.  The Sheltie was in the back seat, and we were in the front seat, so she had plenty of time on the trip to work at it.  But after 5 Shelties, no chewing on silnylon floors as of yet.

Dan D,
From your post, I think I see why the one oz Cuben I bought just to eyeball was so resistant to folding. It was pre-DCF and probably the Cuben with the .18 suffix that has a thicker mylar. With DCF, the 1 oz material used by Zpacks and others may be made with the thinner mylar that was identified with the .08 suffix, and is found in most DCF that weighs less than 1 oz/sq/yd. I’m sure it’s more foldable, but there are trade-offs with the very thin Mylar, as you mentioned.

As I understand it, your floors as well as canopies are made of the sil-coated polyester (‘silpoly’).  You may be right that dual coated polyester (Sil on one side – PU on the other side) is the best choice for most hikers for the reasons you state, and will retain enough of the benefits of silnylon to provide the best of both the sil and PU coatings.   (The 6.6 nylon is not available from RBTR or Thui-Hiker with the dual coating.)  But unlike many hikers, having never had problem on level ground with slippage on sil floors, I can stick with the nylon.

Am beginning to think that the differences reported on BPL with both fabrics and DCF have more to do with quality and type of manufacture than anything else.  Silnylons are all over the walk, running from 6.6 to Asian 2ds, and with sil coatings that have tested very differently reported on BPL forums.  And DCF comes in a host of varieties, the differences not always apparent to buyers.  Silpolys for tents are more recent, but given the wide variety of polyester fabrics, would guess that quality and type of manufacture will affect them just as much as the other materials.   I’m glad that forums and searches on BPL are there to provide some guidance.

Dan-s,
Conventional Tenacious Tape, available for years, does not adhere to silicone coatings. Gear Aid does sell silnylon patches now in their Tenacious Tape line. Haven’t bought any, because have never had a need to patch a silnylon floor (as distinguished from a nylon coated with sil on one side and PU on the other, which could be less elastic with the PU, and therefore less puncture resistant.) But for anyone who wants to try the patches for silnylon, they are 3″x5″ and at:
https://www.amazon.com/Tenacious-Silnylon-Patches-Silicone-Repair/dp/B08FFL4ZZ5

That’s interesting, Sam. I am probably just using the wrong terminology about fabrics, since I’m not an expert. TBH, some of these technical details are a bit obscure for me. To be specific, one example would be my Nemo Hornet, which I used for several years. Maybe that is the other type of material you are describing with sil and PU on opposite sides? When I was using it regularly, I had punctures in the floor a few times from my dogs, and I patched them successfully with Tenacious Tape from both top and bottom. It adhered very well to both sides, and lasted for at least a couple of years with fairly frequent use. I actually pulled it out to check just now (since I haven’t used it for a couple of years), and the patches are still intact, at least visually. I used the more flexible rip-stop tape, not the transparent kind.

Funny about your dog chewing through webbing. My Boxer (in avatar photo) is a very good girl, but my Ridgeback will chew though a webbing leash in 30 seconds if I try to tie him up.

Dan, yeah your Hornet floor is PU inside and either Uncoated or sil out. Since t tape sticks, maybe it’s uncoates on outside.

Hornet fly is definitely pu/sil.

I guess I was just lucky, since I didn’t research these adhesion issues in advance. I’ve had great luck with tenacious tape over the years, patching water reservoirs, bottles, ponchos, and sleeping pads, not to mention my rain pants, which are always getting holes from microspikes and sitting on sharp things.  ;-)

Sam: The 1oz DCF from Zpacks definitely uses the thick .18 mylar. The dyneema strands in DCF don’t help that much for a floor because they’re non-woven (so they don’t help with puncture resistance that much) and they’re on the inside (so they don’t help with abrasion). So the only way to get a decent lifespan is to use the thicker mylar. That is what adds the abrasion resistance. Going to 0.08 kills the floor lifespan. You can save weight by using the .18 mylar with less dyneema (e.g. CT1K.18). That weighs about 0.8oz and would still be almost as good as 1.0 oz dyneema, so that might be a good way to go, but I’m still skeptical that it’s better durability than say RSBTR’s 0.9oz 15D membrane silpoly. The latter is nearly the same weight, far less expensive, probably more waterproof in the long run, and much less bulky.

“Dan, what is the best UL floor fabric you know of that’s available at retail? RBTR 20d silpoly 4000?”
Hard to answer because there are so many variables I’d really want to personally test something before saying it’s good. I’d want at least 20D, no traditional PU (breaks down) but also no pure silicone on the upper side (slippery). You really want PEU on the top side and/or blended in. I think RSBTR’s silpoly 4000 is a blend of sil and PU or PEU (not sure which). If it is PEU, then it is likely a good material. Richard Nisley tested the HH of it and it does hold up quite well. Not as high as our X-Mid material after a lot of wear, but still good.

I wonder if Tarptent will at some point offer a silnylon floor replacement for their DCF tents at a “reasonable” cost?  “Reasonable” for me would be $100. + shipping.

Dan, thanks. Does pu or peu on the inner surface improve puncture resistance as compared to sil/sil?

Eric,

Tarptent offers a Notch inner in silNylon for $130.   FWIW.

Zpacks user here; never had a failure of the bathtub floor with no groundsheet used, the top of your tent will leak first.

@trnamelucky

That doesn’t make much sense, at least without some context. We know DCF is not particularly abrasion or puncture resistant. So how could it be possible that a fly would degrade faster?

Perhaps you are suggesting that since most tent makers use a heavier floor, the heavier floor will survive longer than the fly?

Again, from all other field reports from long term users, I find that hard to believe.

I wonder if your experience is in a place with relatively dry grounds? I.e. you don’t need to set up on ground that is permanently wet or boggy (which, contrary to Ryan’s suggestion, is unavoidable in many places), then you probaly wouldn’t notice the micro-holes in your tent floor, as precipitation would be your biggest water challenge.

Steve, Thanks for that info. It’s good to know my $470. Notch Li fly can get a new interior if needed. Guess that $130. price is reasonable given the high quality.

Dan, re:  “…  I’m still skeptical that it’s [DCF’s] better durability than say RSBTR’s 0.9oz 15D membrane silpoly. The latter is nearly the same weight, far less expensive, probably more waterproof in the long run, and much less bulky.”

My experience with the RBTR membrane polyester was close to zero for durability and puncture/tear resistance.  I’ll probably throw it out.  Not saying that it hasn’t been improved, however; as I bought it several years ago, about the time that Justin Oliveri tested it and several other RBTR fabrics.  It is hard to find his chart on RBTR.  Richard Nisley did test it for HH, and posted the results.  But here is the chart:

https://ripstopbytheroll.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/236101568-Coated-Fabric-Comparison-Chart

Sam, thanks for that on Membrane. I was tempted to try it as a floor.

Stumphges,

RBTR also carries a sub one oz breathable fabric made of nylon that is also called Membrane.

The others are polyester, and include the fabric I have posted about.  For an inner tent, the breathable polyesters won’t sag when moist, and might be worth a look..  Just go to RBTR and search for “membrane,” and the list will be displayed.

Didn’t want to steer you wrong.

I haven’t personally seen or tested the 15D membrane silpoly, but based on what we’re seeing with our 20D floors, I’d feel pretty good about going a step lighter to 15D poly if I was designing a superlight shelter as opposed to a more well rounded one. Abrasion and puncture resistance tend to be similar for both nylon and poly, and 10-15D nylon floors are relatively common. Maybe the membrane stuff is lower threadcount, or not calendered well or something.

I wonder, did Justin Oliveri actually test these fabrics? Or he just filled out a table with subjective impressions/guesses? A lot of it looks about right, but some of it it is suspect, like ranking 1.1oz silylon as higher tear strength than 1.6oz silpoly. I don’t know what confounding factors might be at play there, but normally a 1.6oz silpoly would test substantially stronger. I suspect they didn’t actually test these fabrics, because if they went through the big effort to test puncture resistance, tear strength etc it would be a shame to reduce those results down to just “low”, “medium” etc.

It also looks like their “aged” values for HH aren’t really that aged. It appears they are just from Richard Nisley’s first of three round of wear (5400 of 16,200 cycles). PU4000 is at >3500 at that point, but down to 1400 by the end of the wear test.

This thread makes me curious about the 7d nylon floors on the newly released GG The DCF One and The DCF Two.

Dan,

Calendaring a tightly linked poly as much as a branched nylon is likely not possible. The molecules themselves would prevent “squashing” out in poly. It is mostly a single chain of more linear molecules. Nylon molecules are branched or more non-linear. They can be calendared more heavily than poly. Of course, this depends on how hard you want the press rollers run at.

Regular Nylon is about 1/3 stronger than poly for the same weight. So 1.1 Nylon would be roughly equivalent to  around 1.5oz poly. Now there are a couple different nylon;s. Nylon is about 40-60% stronger than poly. This is around 1.54 to 1.76oz poly. On tent floors, nylon would be preferred with the light loading involved.  I am not sure what he was using for his tests. One is about the same as 1.6poly the other being significantly stronger than 1.6oz poly. Of course, no UV damage to worry about with a floor.  But, Robic is fairly expensive for a tent floor. Tear Strength is MUCH higher with the Robic…roughly 200% to 250% reported.  This relates to abrasion resistance to some degree, so I expect Robic to be better…never tried to tear it, though.